Jan 07 2006
Unleash The Blogosphere!
Welcome Wonkette Readers! you may want to check out this post as well, since it discusses how America helped Iran get their nuclear bomb design.
We are beginning to see, through the dogged efforts of Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard, that connections between Saddam and Terrorists, and yes Al Qaeda, were deep and extensive. First we have the Newsweek list of numerous meetings between Iraq and Al Qaeda officials over a decade.
Today Stephen Hayes continues his efforts to discover what information is hidden inside all the information we captured in Afghanistan and Iraq:
THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according to documents and photographs recovered by the U.S. military in postwar Iraq. The existence and character of these documents has been confirmed to THE WEEKLY STANDARD by eleven U.S. government officials.
The secret training took place primarily at three camps–in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak–and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis.
Surprisingly, this is the tip of the information iceberg:
Nearly three years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, only 50,000 of these 2 million “exploitable items” have been thoroughly examined. That’s 2.5 percent. Despite the hard work of the individuals assigned to the “DOCEX” project, the process is not moving quickly enough, says Michael Tanji, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who helped lead the document exploitation effort for 18 months. “At this rate,” he says, “if we continue to approach DOCEX in a linear fashion, our great-grandchildren will still be sorting through this stuff.”
The new idea is to unleash these documents on the public (and of course that would include the Blogosphere) to let thousands of independent people sift through the information and pull out the gems.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has convened several meetings in recent weeks to discuss the Pentagon’s role in expediting the release of this information. According to several sources familiar with his thinking, Rumsfeld is pushing aggressively for a massive dump of the captured documents. “He has a sense that public vetting of this information is likely to be as good an astringent as any other process we could develop,” says Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita.
The big, legitimate concern is that anti Bush whacko’s will selectively pick information and create a false impression about Saddam and terrorists in general. While I agree they will do this (BDS is strong in these people), the fact the blogosphere will obviously devour this information will likely counter the propagandists. While we in the blogosphere come from all parts of the political spectrum, I think in the end we generate a good assessment of the reality of a situation.
Rumsfeld seems ready to dump this into the Blogosphere and see what we churn out.
So, unleash the Blogosphere! With that many documents we will be busy for years.
Michelle has begun her round up on this subject here.
[…] Michelle Malkin, The Strata-Sphere and the Right Wing Nut House are all talking about the fact that Saddam Hussein was actively training terrorists for up to 4 years prior to the 2003 invasion. “Iraq was not a breeding ground for terrorism. Our invasion has made it one.†–Sen. Ted Kennedy “Iraq was not a terrorist haven before the invasion.” –Sen. John Kerry […]
Confusing the MSM ignorance with FACTS
The other day this little “blurb” appeared on the Newsweak portion of the MSNBC site, on their article “A Special White House Slide Show
[…] But we in the Blogosphere, including Power Line, RightWingNutHouse and AJ Strata are all over this evidence because it completes the pre-war justification for war in Iraq. […]
Saddam’s Ties To Global Terrorism Come To Light
Thanks again to Michelle Malkin for scouring the internet at all hours of the day and night to be the first to report on breaking news.
She has come across an article in The Weekly Standard by terrorism expert Stephen Hayes who has been doggedly pur…
Let’s See The Left Explain This
But Iraq wasn’t a threat to us at all, right? Wrong:
THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion, according …
[…] AJ Strata weighs in on harnessing the power of the blogosphere to disseminate the news. […]
Blindness
Suddenly, left-wing see-, hear- and speak-no-evil is besieged by new evidence; the data to date show “the connections between Saddam and terrorists were substantial and significant,” as the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes — explains.
[…] SoCalPundit and The Strata-Sphere encourage bloggers to stay on this story and get the word out. This is proof that the war in Iraq was the right thing to do. […]
Iraq’s Training of Terrorists Documented
Saddam’s Terror Training Camps What the documents captured from the former Iraqi regime reveal–and why they should all be made public. by Stephen F. Hayes THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the
[…] Never Yet Melted, The Kellino Zone, Small Town Veteran, Michelle Malkin, The Strata-Sphere, Macsmind, Ace of Trump, In The Bullpen, Iowa Voice, Let Freedom Ring, Gina Cobb, Brutally Honest, Protein Wisdom, Captain’s Quarters, Kokonut Pundits, Counter Column, Rhymes With Right, Technorati Tags: Filed in: Uncategorized | No Comments » […]
Unleash The Blogosphere!
Great piece! Comments to my mailing list.
Ron
*****
The story re the govt’s stash of Saddam’s docs which has been well known in the Blogos for awhile is finally seeing the light of day at least in the conservative MSM.
The Blogos is abuzz on this from Instapundit, Michelle Malkin, Austin Bay, Powerline, LGF and others. Here’s one site [Strata-Sphere] the others are linking too that makes my case re the distributive power of the Blogos. Looks like Rummey may actually dump this stuff on the net for all to see and pick apart.
Also see my comment/reply to Andrew Cochran who runs The Counterterrorism Blog in DC. He just posted a piece on his site.
I’m still putting my money on Saddam’s WMD went to Syria and Lebanon in the run to Baghdad. There’s a little supposition in The Standard’s piece re WMD that was alluded to by John Loftus last week that I posted too.
Ron
[…]
[AJ Strata’s piece]
[…]
Reply to Andrew Cochran of The Counter Terrorism Blog
Hey great piece. This doesn’t fit the preordained script of the LL and the MSM though.
This is where the tremendous power of the Blogos to provide alternative sources of info to the American people can shine.
This is a case of bureaucratic inertia/stagnation re the translation of these docs. As I recall it was a newly formed Iraqi media outlet that first got the ledgers of who got the oil vouchers from Saddam that took over a year for the MSM to begin reporting only after the multiple columns by Claudia Rosett (WSJ) and posts by Roger L. Simon.
[…]
I would encourage the DOD to seek out . . . the support of American-Iraqi Christians and other Christian/non-Islamic Arabic speakers who are familiar with the nuances of Iraq and Islam. I have an Iraqi friend who immigrated with his parents here after finishing high school in Iraq. He would do this for free out of a sense of duty as an American citizen.
[…]
Like the Nazis before, and who knows why, the Saddam Regime kept very detailed records of their exploits. It’s time for this stuff to see the light of day and not just languish in some governmental warehouse.
It’s all in these records. Follow the money and the paper trail.
Reminds me of the Arc of the Covenant in the first Indiana Jones movie.
Ron
*****
January 07, 2006
Will Counterterrorism Experts Ignore New Evidence of Saddam’s Terrorist Ties?
Stephen Hayes’ “Weekly Standard” article on Saddam’s terror training camps discloses a massive Iraqi intel stash pointing to a systematic program to train thousands of terrorists. Hayes reports that Saddam’s regime “trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists from the region at camps in Iraq over the four years immediately preceding the U.S. invasion.” ALL of that evidence must be seriously examined, analyzed, and released to the public, and I hope House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra sticks to his guns and forces the Pentagon to release the stash, hopefully in public hearings.
[…]
Link
Confirmed: Iraq was a terrorist training center
The media will keep you in the dark about this, but thanks to Stephen Hayes, we now know it’s been confirmed that Iraq was a terrorist training center, which trained at least 8,000 terrorists between 1999 and 2002 – some with ties to Al Qaeda. …
[…] Michelle Malkin has also reported on this. If the Bush administration has been wrong, we know that the media will report on that. In this case, it appears that the Bush administration was correct. If you think that the mainstream media will point this out, be silent. Otherwise, spread the news far and wide. A. J. Strata suggests that we need to unleash the power of the blogosphere. I think he’s right on track. […]
Saddam was involved in global terrorism
Despite the cries of the loony left that we have no business in Iraq because Saddam wasn’t involved in global terrorism or that he had nothing to do with 9/11, documents are coming to light that indicate the opposite. You probably won’t read about th…
[…] Blogger AJStrata believes this information, along with mega-piles of other data, is soon to made available for public consumption. Jeez, that’ll get some bums twitching at the big mastheads. Filed Under: […]
WHAT ARE YOU FOR: SUCCESS OR FAILURE?
See this comment I posted over at Indepundit re Lt. Smash’s face off with a LL apologist:
*****
Great Lt. Smash you are a true American patriot!
See this post I just sent to my email list.
[…]…
Saddam’s terrorist training bases
The Weekly Standard (via IRIS Blog and Austin Bay Blog) presents another very good reason why the dictatorship of Saddam had to be brought down
Saddam’s Terror Camps!!!
Wow! This could be big. The Weekly Standard has an explosive story on Saddam Hussein’s Terror Training Camps. Here’s the opening paragraph to wet your appetite: THE FORMER IRAQI REGIME OF Saddam Hussein trained thousands of radical Islamic terrorists…
Catching The MSM With Their Pants Down Isn’t Funny Anymore…
The MSM distortions, under reporting and downright misreporting pose a real threat to the future of this country. The effort is one that is played to and fed by politicians who have a stake in seeing the current administration fail.
But failure on tha…
Great work, idiots. Now the whole world knows how to build a bomb thanks to your hard work. Can you say T R A I T O R?